


In The Eye

by Ndeplume



Series: The Cabin [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Cabin Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violent Memories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29030847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ndeplume/pseuds/Ndeplume
Summary: The storm quickly overtook the cabin. All that could be seen out the window was a wall of whiteness and Booker felt small. He couldn't help but think of his first deaths and the fact that he had been the one to take his family here in the first place was terrifying. His chest hurt. His hands began to shake. He tried to dispel the fear and force himself to think logically but that was a losing battle.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Lykon/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Cabin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121393
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	1. The First Evening

**Author's Note:**

> The storm is here! Booker has a panic attack. Everything is fine because that's the point of this entire series. Enjoy!

It didn’t take long for the cold to seep in. Once the power went out, despite the warmth of their fire, the rest of the house began to chill. It was colder than anticipated. Booker knew that he wasn’t in the snowbanks. He /knew/. He knew nothing was wrong. That didn’t stop the anxious thoughts from creeping in, though. He felt the cold air slowly begin to fill the cabin and as he looked out the window to the wall of whiteness, a familiar, unsettling feeling of dread made its home in his chest. 

What if the fire went out? What if they ran out of wood? What if the window broke and the snow came in and they were stuck? What if they ran out of food? 

The answer to all those questions was simple and obvious and logical and rational. They would build a new one. They wouldn’t run out of wood but they would have to chop more. The window wouldn’t break but if it did, they would put up a tarp and some plywood from the cellar and they’d fix it. They wouldn’t run out of food, they could live here for two months without running out of food. The logic and simple answers did nothing to placate him though because the anxiety in his chest had taken hold too deeply. The prospect of freezing to death seemed more real here than it had since his initial deaths and that absolutely terrified Booker. 

He tried not to let on that the anxiety-fueled thoughts were growing. He played another round of cards with Quynh, this time it was a game he didn’t know called ‘Spit’. It was a game of speed and quick thinking, so he was destined to lose from the beginning given the wit and speed of his opponent, but it was fun. It was an easy way to totally distract his brain and keep his hands busy. But even that distraction didn’t do much for long. After the second round, his mind started to wander so Quynh suggested they pick the game up later. He agreed and stood up, letting Joe warm himself next to the fire for a bit. He took up residence in an armchair nearby and looked out the window. The snow was coming down like it was being paid to blanket as much of the earth as possible in as little time as possible. The wind howled, the walls of the cabin creaked, and dread filled Booker’s heart.

He should really have been doing something. Stoking the fire or barricading the door or trying to get down the mountain somehow. What on earth were they thinking, holing themselves away in an abandoned shack on the side of the mountain? And to think it had been his stupid idea in the first place felt like a dagger to the heart. He’d put his family in harm’s way (again) and now they were screwed. It was only a matter of time until the ice took them all again and again and again and they’d be stuck buried in the snow until spring came, if it ever did come on this godforsaken peak. Shit, maybe it didn’t come up here. After all, there had been snow on the ground when they arrived. Nile had spent the day shaking avalanches loose, for God’s sake. They’d freeze into the earth here and they’d be resurrected only to freeze and starve and freeze in an endless, hellish cycle and it was all his fault. How could he havebeensostupid?Howcouldhehaveputhisfamilyinharmswayhowcould-

“Sebastien.” Came a firm voice. Booker’s head snapped to the front to face the person who had spoken. Nicky was sitting next to him, a look of concern on his features. Booker looked around and was relieved to see that the rest of the family wasn’t paying him any attention. He hated being the centre of attention and much preferred to fade into the background wherever possible. Nicky wasn’t having any of that, though. His brother had a hand on his knee and a gentle look in his eyes. He’d pulled Booker from the snowdrift back in Russia and was about to do it again here. “I’m making tea. Want to help?” He asked. Booker nodded curtly. He realized his hands were shaking and if he’d been able to see his own face, he would have been worried too. He looked stricken with fear, but even the desperate look in his eyes couldn’t hold a candle to the way his thoughts swirled around the anxiety-induced feelings. 

Booker shakily pushed himself off of the armchair and followed Nicky into the kitchen. Nicolo didn’t need help with the tea, that was ridiculous, but Booker was incredibly grateful for the thinly veiled offer to be in his company and work through his fears and anxiousness away from the rest of the group. 

The kitchen was cold even though it was just across the room from the fireplace. Once they left the warm bubble emanating from the roaring fire, the coldness set in immediately. There was a thermometer on the window that read -20 Celsius. Booker knew that was nothing compared to how cold it could be up here, but the wind seemed to add an extra negative fifteen degrees, the dark a further ten. Of course, his shivering had less to do with the cold than with his ongoing terror and dread, but Nicky knew that. He wrapped his arms around Booker for a moment anyways. 

“Just because it’s in your head doesn’t make the fear less real. It’s okay to be worried.” Nicky said quietly into his ear before pulling away. He made an effort to speak in French, which the man appreciated. Booker’s chest started to hurt and he nodded quietly, glancing again at the family. “If we can help, we’re here for you.” Nicky reminded him, squeezing his arm. He filled a pot with water from the sink and grabbed teabags from the pantry, which he passed to Booker. The simple act was a brief distraction and the moment away from the family was enough for him to re-focus himself. The cold was clearly getting to him though, so Nicky took two mugs and let Booker carry the other four as they walked back to the fire. 

Joe scooted aside and patted the spot where he’d been sitting, which Booker happily took. It was warm, very warm. He couldn’t feel the heat from the fire through his sweater, so he took it off. Sure enough, he began to warm up. The panic still lurked just below the surface and his true concerns hadn’t been addressed, but he knew there wasn’t much anyone could do. Even if they boarded up the windows and went out and chopped down the whole forest and stole a supermarket’s worth of food, Booker’s mind would just find more ways to antagonize him. He huffed quietly, rubbing his eyes and trying to refocus himself. 

When Joe asked if he was okay, he struggled to answer. He didn’t want to lie but he didn’t have anything concrete to say. “No” was true, but there was nothing actually bugging him. He was just upset. Worried. Anxious. The fears were based in reality and a traumatizing situation, but they weren’t realistic. His hesitation to answer thankfully told Joe all he needed to know. He put an arm around Booker and gently squeezed him. 

“We’ll be okay. Stay here with us tonight, it’ll be warm.” He suggested. Booker nodded. The fire was helping. Joe’s solid hand on his back was helping too. He didn’t need to be told what Booker’s fears were. He’d been there and helped pull him out of the snowbank, he knew that the fears were more than simple anxiety. Booker’s inability to speak wasn’t too surprising either. All of them had more than their fair share of traumatic events. They were well-versed with PTSD before the word was invented. That didn’t make it any easier to cope with, but it did give them some comfort to know that whatever their family member was struggling with, it would be over. 

Booker’s mind turned once again to what it felt was now an inevitability of their situation. He pictured Nile, frozen in snow, struggling to get out but succumbing to the slow and painful death by hunger or the shockingly gentle and almost druglike sleep that was to freeze to death, trapped for an eternity. He thought of Joe and Nicky, desperately trying to dig the other out of the snow. That had happened before not too long ago so it wasn’t much of a stretch for his mind to conjure that image up. He imagined Quynh, so recently escaped from her icy, watery tomb only to be trapped by another cruel force. Andromache truly would be unable to help her, perhaps sheltering her with her body until they both succumbed time and time again. 

Booker’s hands were shaking now. His chest was tight, his heart pounding in his ears. He stared into the fire. He didn’t feel the warmth anymore. Somehow, he felt colder. His nose was cold. His ears, his fingers and toes, they were freezing. Could he see his breath? Booker breathed out just to see. If he couldn’t see his breath then they were fine, right? He didn’t see anything, but maybe he’d missed it. He breathed out again. No cloud. But what if it was just starting? What if this was the point where the storm proved too strong and cold for their tiny shelter, for their petty fire? Booker’s chest began to ache as he breathed out again to check, just to see. Was his nose running? If his nose was running then it was cold and if it was cold then they were doomed. He held a shaking finger to his face to check and breathed in through both nostrils. One felt a little tight. Oh god, was that because it was stuffed up? He tried again. No, no it was fine. This was fine. He took a few breaths and tried to shake himself out of the spiral. Then he breathed in and couldn’t help but pay attention to whether his nose was stuffed up or not, whether his breath was coming out in a cold puff or not. 

Joe was watching Booker. He wasn’t even trying to disguise the concern. When the man’s breathing grew more controlled and a little frantic, he started to gently rub his back. Normally when one of them was having a panic attack, they would try to do things to help ground them. Go for a walk and listen to a podcast together, for instance. Bake something. Have a lesson in a forgotten language, courtesy of Andy or Quynh. Those little actions didn’t always help and more often than not they simply settled the bad thoughts rather than addressing the root cause of the anxiety, but therapy wasn’t an option for them so this was what they could do. 

Booker’s entire body vibrated under Joe’s hands and the man’s eyes were wide and unfocused. Joe began to speak to him quietly. Andy silently passed him a thick blanket, but didn’t look over from where she was watching Quynh play a game on her phone. They all knew that Sebastien didn’t need the attention. 

Booker glanced over to the side when he felt Joe begin to rub his back. His breathing hiccupped and he frowned, taken by surprised at the sudden quiet sob that tried to escape his lips. He pressed his face into his hands and swore under his breath, running a hand through his hair. He couldn’t do this. This was too much. Unconsciously, he leaned into the hand on his back. 

Joe took that as his cue to cover Booker with the blanket, gently draping it around his shoulders. He hesitated a moment before he draped the other end around his own shoulders and curled up under the large quilt with his brother. Booker seemed comforted by the warmth and weight of the piece, even if he couldn’t say so at the moment. 

A century ago, he’d have gone off to a quiet corner of the cabin and panicked in solitude or drank himself into a stupor. He was making a real effort to be sober now, though. He wasn’t totally sober, he still had a glass of wine now and then, but the only time he drank was with his family. Eternity was a very long time to go without alcohol, after all. It was much harder to be sober now, though. Spending the storm too drunk to think was an incredibly enticing idea. Instead, he let himself sink into Joe’s arms. 

Sebastien had never been a particularly cuddly person but it was hard to say no when one of his family members offered. Right now he felt vulnerable. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. He opened his mouth to try to explain them away as ‘nothing’ and ‘fine’ and ‘just a reflex’ but the words wouldn’t come and instead, he crumbled. Booker turned his body into Joe’s and pressed his face to his shoulder. Joe’s arms automatically tightened around him, letting Booker take comfort in his embrace. 

Slowly, Booker felt his shoulders relaxing. His heart rate slowed. His chest didn’t feel quite so tight. It had been nearly twenty minutes since he had started crying and the tears seemed to have stopped. Joe’s patience was remarkable and his strong, secure hold hadn’t once wavered or loosened. Booker shifted his shoulders and sat up, though he stayed at his brother’s side. He felt raw and exhausted and tired. He didn’t have the energy to pretend to be okay so he just stared at the fire again, but not before he thanked Joe quietly, his voice hoarse. Joe told him not to thank him and stuck close by. 

Nile took that as her cue. She uncurled from where she was sitting in the chair Booker had been sitting in earlier. She hopped over to the pair and pulled up a corner of the blanket. The cold air rushed in, but was just as soon forced out once she took up residence on Sebastien’s right side, the opposite from Joe. She smiled at him and wrapped an arm around his arm, laying her head on his shoulder. 

Nicky, meanwhile, poured Booker a mug of tea which he’d been keeping warm by the fire. The others already had theirs. Sebastien took it gratefully and leaned back against the pillows behind them, taking a few slow breaths. Nile had taught him a few breathing exercises from her army days and he tried to remember them now. Silently, she started doing one herself which Booker gratefully copied. 

He sniffled and immediately thought about his earlier spiral. Even though he knew with absolute certainty that the stuffy nose was just a result of twenty minutes of sobbing, the “what if it’s because we’re freezing to death” thought still popped up. This time though, he was able to dismiss it easily. Sebastien took a slow, deep breath. In, hold, then out. He took a sip of tea. He rested his back against the pillow and felt Joe’s arm around his shoulder. Nile was on his other side. The sun had long since gone down and the fire was strong as ever. They’d be okay, he thought to himself. They always were.


	2. The First Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a little dark and deals with violence and depictions of death with Andy's reunion with Quynh.   
> I stuck with some of the original comic stuff but mostly ignored it because I don't like it, quite frankly.   
> Hope you're liking it so far!

Quynh woke a few times during the night. She had fallen asleep on top of Andy, her side pressed between her wife’s legs, torsos resting on top of each other, one hand on Andy’s heart and the other on the pillow next to her face, their legs tangled together. It was a comfortable position, though it didn’t allow either of them much room for movement. The women hadn’t slept through a night in millennia and they weren’t about to start now. Around 2 am, about four hours after Booker, Nile, and Joe fell asleep, Andy shifted Quynh off of her so that she could get up and add a log to the fire. She’d been keeping watch for a while and Nicky had just fallen asleep, his head on Joe’s chest. Joe still had his arm around Booker. Nile was curled up with her head on Booker’s chest and four pairs of legs tangled together under a warm blanket. Weapons were nearby, but nobody would be getting to them in this weather. It was more a force of habit than anything else. 

Quynh woke up as Andy moved. She yawned and crawled over to kneel next to her, leaning her head on Andy’s side as she added to the fire. Sleepily, she wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist, curling closer for warmth and comfort and affection. She had her own troubles with the dark and cold. Quynh had felt badly for Booker earlier when he’d panicked. She had been there many times herself and knew how lonely it was to have the end of the world going on inside your head while everybody outside remained calm and didn’t have a clue what was happening. Their traumatic experiences overlapped, but they experienced trauma differently. 

As Andy pulled back from the fire once it was sufficiently built up, she leaned down to kiss Quynh lovingly. She broke the kiss after a few moments and stared into Quynh’s eyes. She didn’t need to ask to know that something was bugging her. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She whispered. “Is it the dark? The cold?” Quynh simply shrugged. It was both of those things but she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to talk about it. Andy didn’t say anything in a quiet effort to encourage her soul to vocalize her feelings and concerns. Ever since coming out of the water, that had been a problem for Quynh. It was better now than it was, but she still had troubles. It was only natural after what she’d been through. Andy’s gentle insistence worked, though. 

“I feel like I can feel myself drifting away.” She murmured, pulling her knees to her chest and staring into the fire. “I feel like my mind is slipping back to the place I was when I found you again. Like there’s been no progress at all and I’m going to go back to that...that furious, terrified, person.” 

“You were always justified.” Andy reminded quietly. She’d never be upset at Quynh’s anger. In fact, she’d embraced it. The only reason she didn’t let Quynh kill her instantly was because Joe and Nicky stepped in. Quynh sighed and tucked her head against her knees, blowing out through her nose in frustration. 

“I still killed you.” She murmured. She wasn’t proud of that particular achievement. The first year after her return had been rocky, to say the least. Her family had more or less stayed by her side but she made it incredibly hard on them. The only person she trusted was Booker because she felt she understood his mind more than he did. Centuries of seeing through his eyes practically assured her of that. She also trusted Nile, at least a little, because she hadn’t directly harmed Quynh. Joe, Nicky, and Andy were fair game and she tormented them almost as badly as she tormented herself. Sometimes it wasn’t voluntary. She’d wake up screaming, she’d raise hellfire when anybody came near. She’d have a panic attack in the middle of the day and throw knives or whatever else was nearby. Andy, still apparently mortal, had been kept away from her most times just in case of an outburst. It was a smart policy, in hindsight. 

Sometimes, the fury overtook her and the havoc she wrought was completely voluntary (or as voluntary as it could be in such circumstances). She wasn’t proud of those moments and in the century since her return, she’d tried to make up for them many times. She’d drowned Booker quite a lot at first. She’d killed Nicky and Joe dozens of times in an attempt either to get back at them, or more frequently, to hurt Andy. She’d even killed Nile simply for being in her way. The worst crime by far was the day she’d killed Andy. 

She’d woken up in a particularly bad mood. She hadn’t had more than an hour’s worth of sleep in over two weeks because the nightmares were so bad. She’d tried to bathe but couldn’t and as a result, she smelled overwhelmingly like the modern deodorants and mists and sprays that were supposed to stop body odour and Quynh loathed it. The strong scents gave her headaches and she couldn’t simply wash them off after putting on too much because the whole issue was with water. She was starving and thirsty but couldn’t manage eating or drinking much. Everyone else was in a foul mood too. As supportive as they all were, living with somebody recovering from something so intense was difficult on all parties involved. 

That morning, revenge was the only thing on her mind. It consumed her thoughts. The fact that Andy was so close and still couldn’t answer for her actions was infuriating. To this day, Quynh wasn’t sure if she had woken up intending to kill her or not. She had frustrated Joe and he’d gone on a walk to clear his head. Nicky had done his best to keep his cool but once Joe had left, Quynh threw a pen at him, stepped on his neck, and was walking towards Andy’s room before anybody knew what was wrong. 

Andromache hadn’t fought back. That was the most heartbreaking part. When Quynh had opened the door to her bedroom, kitchen knife in hand, she had simply stood there, arms at her side, a defeated look on her face. The simple acceptance of her wife’s rage and fury and anger and fear was the trigger. Quynh leapt at her and tackled her to the ground, knife buried hilt-deep in her chest. The blood pooled around them as Booker and Nile ran into the room. Quynh had been straddling Andy’s chest, one hand cupping her wife’s face as she faded quietly. Andy had whispered to her before the light left her eyes, which was the moment when Booker and Nile burst through the door. 

Booker shot Quynh and dragged her away. Nile rushed to Andy’s side to check on her, praying that somehow she was still alive, that all she’d need was a good few stitches and some strong alcohol to get her through this. It was too late. 

Until it wasn’t. Until Andy’s chest shuddered and life poured back into her throat, filling her lungs, causing her to swear and tug the knife from her chest. She lay on the floor of the bedroom panting while Nile and Booker stared at her in shock. Nicky came into the room panicked and saw Andy in a pool of blood, sitting up, unharmed, holding a kitchen knife. He put the scene together quickly and ran to get Joe. They’d held a family meeting that day. After a few tests just to make sure Andy was healing again, they’d agreed to let the pair of them spend some time together, alone, for a few months. It hadn’t cured Quynh of her deeply rooted traumatic experience, but it had helped her feel more human. Less like a caged beast, a villain, some uncontrollable, unpredictable creature who could snap at any moment. Seeing herself as a person again was the first step to healing. 

And as the cold night air crept in on her, she felt it sliding away. Perhaps (almost definitely) it was her fear talking, but she felt her grasp on her sanity loosening. That terrified her. Thankfully, it didn’t scare Andy. The Scythian gently scooted so that she and Quynh were sitting facing each other. Quynh, immediately wanting to be close to her wife again, looped her legs around Andy’s waist and scooted closer still. Andy took Quynh’s hands in her own and squeezed them, her thumbs rubbing a familiar pattern on the soft skin. 

“I’m so proud of you.” She whispered, slipping into a language spoken only by the two of them. A unique blend of ancient Vietnamese and ancient Greek. Yusuf and Nicolo had their Ligurian-Arabic tongue, and one day, Nile and Booker would be the last remaining native English and French speakers. As sad as the fact itself might have been, romantic part of Andy and Quynh, revived along with Andy on the bedroom floor, saw it as a piece of their world that only they could see. Their own private paradise. Andromache continued, the words falling easily from her lips. 

“You made such progress. I thought I might have you back after two, three hundred years. I never thought you’d forgive me. I never imagined we’d be here, like we are, so soon after you broke yourself out. You’re strong, Quynh. You’re the strongest woman alive. Nobody and nothing could ever break you and that’s still true. It might hurt, you might feel pain or cry or feel vulnerable and weak, but you never broke. It’s impossible to break you. Every attempt makes you come back stronger and tonight, this is nothing. You are stronger. And you have us to remind you of that.” The words were firm. They left no room for argument or disagreement. Andy’s view of the world shaped how she comforted those around her and so she relied on simple facts to prove her point. It wasn’t that Quynh’s fears were silly, they were just not good enough to keep her down. 

Quynh was quiet for a moment. Andy wasn’t prone to speeches so any time she spoke uninterrupted for periods of time was something to take seriously. She looked down at her lap, at Andy’s, and didn’t make eye contact. A small tear escaped the corner of her eye and she glanced up at her wife, vulnerability clear on her features as they were lit by the fire. 

“What if this is the one?” She whispered so faintly that her words could hardly be understood over the crackle of the logs on the fire. “What if...what if this time I let my guard down and it overtakes me and I kill you all again? Or I leave? Or...what if I lose control? An, I..you know I’m not me, not yet. Not fully. I lose control sometimes still.” She pointed out, her hands fidgeting in Andy’s hold. 

“Stop that, Quynh.” Came the confident reply. The command’s words were far harsher than the tone Andy used. “You know you don’t have any less control than me, or Nicky or anybody else. Your mind is strong, it’ll try to convince you of things to keep you scared because you spent so long fighting with nowhere to go.” She rationalized. Andy was trying to understand the complicated nature of mental health and PTSD in a way she had never engaged with it before. In all her centuries of life, she’d taken the blunt but simplest approach. Deal with it, move on. Let the dreams come, drink them away if you have to, but keep moving. Nightmares were part of life and they had other issues like not starving, not being found, not being captured or killed or compromised. Now that they couldn’t simply keep moving and ignore the 500 years of trauma, she was doing her best to understand. Quynh loved her for it. She had walked in one day on Nile teaching Andy about trauma from a psychology textbook. That simple moment had made the woman fall in love all over again. She cuddled closer to Andy, sighing as she accepted another hug. 

“I know it’s all in my head.” Quynh paraphrased. “Still hurts though.” She added quietly. Andy nodded at that, squeezing her softly. 

“I know. It’s...it’s no less real just because it’s in your head. And it’s good that you’re talking about it. I’m glad you’re telling me about it because talking helps, even if there’s nothing I can do besides be here for you.” Quynh could picture Nile patiently explaining that exact concept to Andy and it warmed her heart to think that her wife had memorized and internalized the lesson just for her. She leaned up and kissed her in silent gratitude. 

“I’ll nap tomorrow. You go back to sleep, Andromache. I’ll keep watch. And I’ll wake you up if I feel like killing you again.” Quynh teased, gently patting Andy’s chest. There was a thin white line just under her breasts and above her stomach where the knife had entered at an angle. It had never faded, Andy hoped it never would, Quynh was starting to see why. As painful as the memory was, it had brought them together again. 

Andy lay down on the blankets and Quynh imagined her all those years ago lying on furs in a tent. Her eyes young and bright, full of life and excitement and wonder as she shared story after story about the wide world she’d seen. They had been so young. So eager to share the world with each other, to see it through their eyes. It was nice to see things through Andy’s eyes again, even if it only helped her keep the worry at bay for a few hours.


End file.
